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The Knife: Off Record – 128 · The Knife: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Welcome to The Knife Off Record. I'm Patia Eton, I'm
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Hannah Smith. If you've been enjoying the show, if you
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: would do us a favor and go over to Apple
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen and give us
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a rating and review, we would love you for it. Yeah.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Today, I am so excited because I'm telling you a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: story that you know absolutely nothing about.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I literally have no idea, and I know you've been
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: working really hard on it over the last few weeks
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: and there's been moments where you're like, oh my gosh,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I just had this wild phone call and I'm like,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: what what is it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking forward to telling you this story because
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: is not only is it a heist story, but I
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: also at the end of the episode, we'll hear from
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: someone who has a really important relationship to one of
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: the people involved, and I think brings an important layer
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: to the story outside of the crime.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Cool. Yeah, So how did you first find this story?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Great question?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I think I remember because, as you know, I like
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: have one billion.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Tabs open this right now.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, three notepads that I'm trying to stay organized and
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: at once, and you have to sort of stack them
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: on top of each other to see my actual list.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Great system, Yes.
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  Speaker 2: But I found this because I think we had recently
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: interviewed Ellen, who was the victim of a kidnapping.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, great episode. If you haven't listened to that yet,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: go listen to that episode.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And so I was thinking, wow, okay, what would it
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: be like to be held hostage? Like really trying to
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: put myself in that space. And so I started thinking
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: about bank robberies and like, this is what we see
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: in the movies?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Is everybody get down blah blah.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, you and I had previously interviewed
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: a bank robber before, which was an interesting story. We
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: interviewed a bank robber and the FBI agent who tracked
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: him down. We interviewed that agent again on this show,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: which name is Mark Rosey.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That was such an interesting interview with the bankrobber.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I remember him because he was so honest about it.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: He told us exactly what happened in his life and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: his mindset and walked us through the whole thing.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: And there were so many layers of his story that
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: you know it was wrong for him to do that
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: which he knows, but you begin to understand. And that
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: is for me, one of the more fascinating aspects of
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: like quote unquote crime and people who commit crimes is
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: does the ability to do good and bad lie and
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: everyone probably yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Bank robbery is this interesting thing that has
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: sort of this romanticized version of like early America, and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you have like Bonnie and Clyde. But then there's also
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: this aspect of sort of like desperation, like someone who
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: you know, they're like, oh, I could just take this
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: money right now, and that would solve my problems. So
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  Speaker 1: it's very interesting psychologically, Yeah, definitely. And you know, recently
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I saw a headline where a guy went into a
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: bank with lemon juice all over his face and he
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: had convinced himself yes, and he had convinced himself that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: the lemon juice made him invisible to the point where
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: he was like winking at security cameras like you'll never
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: catch me, You'll never catch me. And then they of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: course do catch him, and he is shocked. And I'm
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: not remembering the exact like diagnosis he was given, but
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: it was something along the lines of like overconfidence, what
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like something you know, I don't know how
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: to put more serious than that. It was like, literally,
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  Speaker 1: you have just managed to convince yourself of this. Oh
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  Speaker 1: a man, if you could imagine. Okay, So this is
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the story of the trench Coat robbers. They are a
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  Speaker 1: notorious duo of bank robbers, and I'm just going to
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  Speaker 1: get right into it, right, all right. So it's six
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  Speaker 1: point thirty pm on February tenth, nineteen ninety seven. We're
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  Speaker 1: in Lakewood, Washington, which is just outside of Tacoma, and
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  Speaker 1: we're looking right at sea First Bank. Now the bank
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  Speaker 1: is closed, it just closed, but inside three women are
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  Speaker 1: still working. They are wrapping up for the evening, getting
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  Speaker 1: cash from the day stored safely away. And two men
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  Speaker 1: approach the bank. They're in trench coats. One of them
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  Speaker 1: pulls a small L shaped tool out of his pocket
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  Speaker 1: and picks the lock. The door clicks open and they're inside.
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  Speaker 2: Immediately, guns pointed at the people who are still working
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  Speaker 2: at the bank. One person zip ties everybody and the
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  Speaker 2: other gets a hold of the cash. So they order
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  Speaker 2: these people into the vault. They restrain them, and they
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  Speaker 2: begin to fill duffel bag. After duffel bag with cash.
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  Speaker 2: They're in and out in less than ten minutes with
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  Speaker 2: nearly four point five million dollars.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Carrying four point You guys think that's heavy. It's heavy. Yeah,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: okay wow.
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  Speaker 2: As soon as they're gone, one of the women breaks
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  Speaker 2: free from a zip tie and she sounds the alarm,
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  Speaker 2: so immediately the FBI is involved. They don't know who
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: these men are, but they're pretty sure that this is
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the work of the trench Coat Robbers, a notorious duo
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  Speaker 2: that has been on a cross country crime spree, evading
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  Speaker 2: capture for decades.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, see, I was going to say, this feels like
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  Speaker 1: a clean operation, like a well oiled machine. In and
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: out quickly, zip time. So it's making sense now that
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  Speaker 1: this is a notorious duo.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and this is their biggest ever heist and it
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: would be their last. So I'm actually going to take
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: you back to the beginning. Ooh okay, wow, I right
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: the way you're telling this, Okay, great. In this case,
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  Speaker 2: the beginning is all the way back. In nineteen seventy four,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: William Arthur Kirkpatrick, known as Billy and Ray Bowman, managed
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: to walk out of a kmart together with thirty eight
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  Speaker 2: stolen records.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: The booster duo is arrested.
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  Speaker 2: Their names are written by hand and one another's arrest records,
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  Speaker 2: but they never end up doing any time for this theft. Now,
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  Speaker 2: boosting is taking something and reselling it, right, Okay, okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: so they're like a budding crime duo in the seventies.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: They're teenagers, Billy and Billion Ray Billion Ray.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So Billy's from Hoblan, Minnesota and raised from Kansas City.
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  Speaker 2: But they meet at what you might call their first
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  Speaker 2: real job, boosting records for none other than Kansas City
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  Speaker 2: mob boss Anthony J. Carterrella, otherwise known as Tiger Carterrella,
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  Speaker 2: the owner of Tiger Records.
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  Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, and also a mob boss. Also a
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  Speaker 1: mob boss. That feels like that could be a whole
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  Speaker 1: story right there, for sure.
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  Speaker 2: So Tiger Records is a place where you could go
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  Speaker 2: and get the latest and greatest hits for a fraction
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  Speaker 2: of the price, much cheaper than you could anywhere else
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  Speaker 2: because the inventory was stolen by boosters like Billy and Ray.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: My gosh, yeah wow.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so they really passed their sales onto the customer,
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: which you have to appreciate. So you're going to be
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: hearing a series of clips in the episode. The first
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: person we're going to hear from for really the majority
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: of the episode is a former ATF agent by the
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: name of Paul Marquart, and Paul is now retired, however,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: he does.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Sometimes still do contract work for the ATF.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, and then what they would do is they had
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: these trench coats that had hidden pockets inside, and they
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  Speaker 3: would go out to small Kansas and go to like
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  Speaker 3: any place that would sell records, and one of them
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: would distract the clerk and well the other one's sticking
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  Speaker 3: albums in their coat. And they were doing a lot
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: of this in the winter time because then it wasn't
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  Speaker 3: suspicious I'm wearing a trench coat. And then they would
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  Speaker 3: just offload all those record albums to Tiger's record shop.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, we're talking albums. We're not talking CDs. We're talking big,
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  Speaker 1: big albums, and they're putting them in their trench coats. Yeah, wow,
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  Speaker 1: modern day Taylor Deluxe. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: So Billy and Ray are stealing these records in droves,
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  Speaker 2: and as we now know, this is not a small
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: time operation. They're making some serious cash and they're dipping
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  Speaker 2: their toes into the world of organized crimes.
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  Speaker 1: So wait, can I just clarify real quick? They're working
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: for Tiger Records, right, Like, they're going around to other
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  Speaker 1: stores stealing albums and then selling them to Tiger Records.
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  Speaker 2: Basically, yes, okay, yeah, and that is how they met.
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  Speaker 2: So I wasn't able to go back further than that,
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  Speaker 2: but that's how they met and became friends.
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  Speaker 1: They were immediately bested. Yeah, they were really connected. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So I went on to Reddit.
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  Speaker 2: To see if anyone had anything to say about Tiger
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  Speaker 2: Records because it has since closed, and I found a
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  Speaker 2: thread on the Kansas City subreddit with few locals who
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  Speaker 2: remembered it pretty well. There were rumors of very tight security,
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  Speaker 2: people on ladders looking down at the shop making sure
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  Speaker 2: no one was stealing from them, you know, much more
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  Speaker 2: than you would have a normal record shop. So I
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  Speaker 2: have no idea if anything else was going on there,
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  Speaker 2: but I can speculate that Tiger Carterella was in more
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: than the record business.
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  Speaker 1: I see.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so for Billion Ray, this is a good gig.
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  Speaker 2: There's easy money, no consequences. So far, they've been arrested
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  Speaker 2: but didn't do any time. And then actually In nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy seven, Carterrella was convicted for selling stolen records, and
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  Speaker 2: he was sentenced to five years and was also fined.
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  Speaker 2: I imagine if you're a Tiger Carterella in this moment,
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  Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, arrest me for stolen records. I don't
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  Speaker 2: know everything he was doing, but that seems like a
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  Speaker 2: deal I would take if I were him.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Like he was maybe doing other right things, but he
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: got caught for the records.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: So this is probably, you know, not a time when
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: you want to continue working for an alleged mob boss.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: The people are onto him, and you're kind of small
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: time by comparison. I can also speculate that if you're
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: a billion ray and you're working for Tiger Records and
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Tiger Carterrella, you're starting to sort of see wealth from
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe that is obtained by a means that
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: is not good, but that you might be able to replicate.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: So I'm there in Kansas, Yeah, so Tiger Records in
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Kansas City. Billy didn't live there, but they would travel
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: all around and connect and do this right together, boosting records.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I can totally see how they would think, like we
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: could have an exciting life as opposed to going and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: getting a nine to five over here. Yeah, our lives
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: could be much more glamorous totally. And I mean I
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: wasn't a teenager in the seventies. I was still dead,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: if you will. But but if.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Your friends are like flip and Burgers for minimum wage
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  Speaker 2: and you're making big bucks boosting records, that'd be pretty
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: hard to stop doing. And I'm especially picturing like if
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I were a teenage boy, like this is a good
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: time appealing, like it's yeah, yeah, feels quite victimless too,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: a record like who cares?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Who cares? I will say for Tiger the mob boss,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: if the record store is his front, then he really
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: screwed up by having your front not be clean. Right,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So there's anything I've learned from watching The Wire, Yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: your front business has to be like upstanding. Oh my god,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the Wire. I'm Michael Scott with the Wire. I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: just understand a word of it.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Fair A side note, Tiger Carterilla went missing in nineteen
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: eighty four. He was missing for two weeks and then
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: found dead in the trunk of his own car, so
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: it didn't end well for him. But back to our
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: budding trench coat robbers. In September of nineteen eighty two,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: two young men billion Ray, decide to rob a bank
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: in Annapolis, Missouri. They picked the lock while the bank
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: is closed, and once inside, point a gun at the
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: bank teller's and demand access to the cash. They're wearing wigs, sunglasses,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: and a hat. I wasn't there while they were planning this,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: but it seems like they may have watched some movies
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: about it, and you know, it's a pretty unimaginative disguise,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: but it works, and they take off in a stolen
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: car with around sixty thousand dollars and begin planning their
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: next tist.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: That's pretty big, especially for the eighties. Yeah, it's a
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: lot of money. It's a lot of money. So you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: boost records is out, bank robbery is in. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: lucrative sounds like totally.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And in nineteen eighty three, Ray starts dating a woman
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: named Cheryl Clark, and he tells her that he's unemployed
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: sometimes works as a locksmith, you know, convenient to truth
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: than that, but he is a big spender and that's
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: not lost on Cheryl. They go to a lot of
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: fancy dinners, they ride in limousines, he buys expensive clothes,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: he gives her cash more than you would make as
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: a sometimes unemployed locksmith, and he would leave for weeks
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: at a time. And we on the other side of
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: this know that Ray was meeting up with Billy and
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: they would go to another location, stake out a bank,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: and then rob the bank and go their separate ways again.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: So Ray was living in Kansas City and Billy was
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: living in Minnesota.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And so Cheryl didn't know that he was even friends
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: with or maybe hadn't even met. Yeah.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: So Cheryl was dating Ray and at some point she
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: becomes aware that he has a friendship with this guy Billie,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: but she doesn't know that they're robbing banks together.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So in nineteen eighty seven, they rob the Hawkeye Bank
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: in Des Moines, Iowa, making out with nearly fifty grand.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: And this robbery starts differently than the others. At this time,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Billy and Ray have set their sights on one of
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the bank employees and they essentially stalk him and figure
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: out where he lives, and then at three point thirty
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: in the morning on November sixth, nineteen eighty seven, they
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: break into his house. They hold the man, his wife
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: and child at gunpoint, zip tie them, and with all
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: three in two they go to the bank where the
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: man worked.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, so it's definitely an escalation, right, sure, because
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: now you're kidnapping three people.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know not that zip tying them at
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: their place of work was any sort of better. But
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: you can see this like brazenness, right, Yeah, Like you're
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: going to go to this guy's home, you're gonna follow him,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: you're gonna take his wife and kid.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels much more violent, but I can imagine
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: like they've been getting away with it, so they're feeling
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a little more confident perhaps, Yeah, totally.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: And so they go to this bank where the man
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: works and they steal fifty grand, right, and then they
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: go their separate ways. And what they're doing after these
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: robberies is they're going their separate ways and on their
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: way home because they're driving, they're stopping at different banks
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: and they're making deposits into safe deposit boxes.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, different bank safe deposit boxes like across the country. Yeah,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: do they co own these or these they're their own
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: separate are.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Their own separate boxes. They were relatively careful, which I'll
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: get into more or later, not to make their sort
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: of association super clear.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And so in nineteen eighty eight, they have a failed robbery.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: They attempt to rob Versus Wisconsin Bank, but the vault
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: had already been closed for the night, and they left
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: all the employees tied up in the basement and took
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: off with nothing. So I don't know exactly what went
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: wrong there, but things are moving really quickly.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: They're already onto their next robbery.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And there are robberies in between these that I don't
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: even we don't even really quite know about because they
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: weren't fully traced back to them until later.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: But somehow they couldn't get maybe into the vault or
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. So this was a failed robbery. This
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: was a complete failure. And are they wearing trench coats
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: every time?
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I should mention they're wearing trench coats, wigs, mustaches,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: fedora hats, I mean, sunglasses. They just stick to the
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: same get up and there's two of them and the
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: same emma. They get into the bank, they either linger
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: as it's closing, a stay behind, or they pick the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: lock and get in right it's opening, and right as
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: it's closing. So their whole goal is usually that there's
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: no one else in the bank besides them and the employees.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: And so in nineteen eighty nine they rob another branch
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: of the first Wisconsin bank, but this time they're successful
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: and they take over four hundred thousand dollars, saying yeah,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: So once again they return to their separate lives. They
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: stop on the way home make these deposits and to
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: save deposit boxes all over the country, and some of
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: the cash they do take with them, but you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: how much cash does a man really need? Yeah, And
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: from what I've learned about Ray, he never told anyone
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: close to him that he was robbing banks or doing
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: anything illegal. There were definitely times where he was sort
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: of openly not transparent, but he did not tell the
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: people close to him.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Billy was not as tilant. Okay, I was going to say,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: this agreement they have where they meet up and they'll
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: rob a bank and then they go and they do
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: their separate things. It really requires a lot of trusts
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in each other. I don't know how long it is
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: between bank robberies, like a year or something. They're just
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: gonna trust the other person is like keeping their lipsipped,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and in some ways it's sort of like this sweet friendship,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: like we have this secret. It works, but like I
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: have so much dirt on you. Yes, but don't you
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: dare that? Don't you dare?
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: So?
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Then?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: But what happens with Billy?
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: So Billy is dating a woman named Mayra Penny and
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: he discloses a little more to her than Ray ever
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: does to anyone close to him.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: But more on that later.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, So Cheryl and Ray broke up in nineteen eighty nine,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: and Cheryl would later say that when they were living together,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: there was a locked room in their home she was
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: not allowed to go into, but one day she peered
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: in and saw wigs, bake, mustaches, Dora, Cheryl, and a
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: police scanner.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Oh uh huh yeah, suspect. Yeah, So what Cheryl thinking?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: At this point, She's thinking, you're probably not a locksmith,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: but I'm on my way out, so you know. So
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Ray begins dating a woman named Virginia Delamo, and she
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: goes by Jenny, and by nineteen ninety they're living together.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Now Jenny had a child from a previous relationship, as
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: did Ray, and then Jenny and Ray go on to
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: have two daughters together. So Ray tells Jenny and others
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: at this time in his life that he sells lawnmowers
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: and works as a private investigator. And just like during
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: his relationship with Cheryl, he leaves for weeks at a time.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: And I read somewhere that he would tell her to
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: take the kids to the grocery store and that's when
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: he would leave.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: What do you mean, Like he wouldn't tell her like
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going on a work trip.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: It would be sort of their code, like I'm going
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: on a trip. I'm going to be gone for a while,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: so that the kids didn't start getting upset. Yeah, because
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: you know, whether you're a bank robber or a traveling salesman,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: you probably have to pack for a trip like that, right,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Like especially if you've got a bunch of fedoras, like
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: I imagine the boxes you're traveling with not disquis.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So get the kids out of the house so that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I can pack my trench coat. I think that's what
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it was, you see.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she never knew where he was going for how long,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: or had any way to contact him. Now, in nineteen
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: ninety one, billion, Ray rob a bank and Green Valley
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, and they take off with
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars, but police nearly
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: capture them in the process. Billion Ray take a hostage,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: lead police on a high speed chase, and even exchange gunfire.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: What Yeah, And so somehow they managed to get away.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: The hostage was left somewhere unharmed. I could not find
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: hardly anything about this. It's mind blowing to me.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: So this hostage, I guess that was seeing them in disguise, yes, okay, yeah,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: and is this before CCTV. Yeah, so this is it's
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: like we're in the early nineties. You know, even any
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: security footage that would be had was probably pretty fuzzy.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And a lot of the time they were driving stolen cars. Okay,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: they were renting a car, driving a stolen car, so
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like we got the licensed slate bingo, right, Okay, Yeah,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: So they're pretty careful about that, driving different cars and
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: apparently have really good disguises. I mean, I'm just imagining
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: those glasses that have the nose and then like the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: hair on the top of the glasses. I mean, it's
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: almost like that.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm thinking if I'm a bank teller
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: and two men walking in trench coats. I'm done for
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: the day. I'm going home, goodbye. I'm going to take
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the afternoon off exactly. But somehow they managed to get
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: out of this high speed chase unharmed, and this hostage
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: somehow unharmed. Like always, the Trencoat Robbers then split ways
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: returned to their lives, and now Ray has a young
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: daughter along with his older children to go home to.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Billy returns to his girlfriend Mayra Penny in Minnesota.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So, just like in.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: The home he shared with Cheryl, he has the same
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: locker room with Jenny, right, She's not allowed to go
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: in there. It's a very modest house, a small ranch
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: shell home in the middle class neighborhood. And they're successfully
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: flying under the radar. Now fast forwarding a little bit,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: the trench Coat Robbers have been linked to twenty seven
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: sometimes I read twenty different bank robberies. So as this
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: is all happening through the early nineties, because it started
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: back in the eighties, the FBI is assembling a task
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: force because they know that these trench Coat robbers exist,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: but they don't know who they are at this time.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: They've been featured on America's most wanted unsolved mysteries. But
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: they always seem to be ten steps ahead.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, until one day in May of nineteen ninety seven
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: when the first domino falls.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we heard from Paul Mark Quart earlier retired
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: to ATF agent Semer retired.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I would say he still works sometimes hard
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to give up the job. Yeah, he really loves it.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: He was just the best to talk to you about this.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So back in nineteen ninety seven, Paul is working
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: as an agent for the ATF in Kansas City, Missouri.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: I'm walking down the hall It's mid afternoon. I'm already
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: thinking about going home a little bit earlier, and the
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: assistant Special Agent in charge walks out of his out
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: of their division office. Hey, Paul, come here, and I
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: got a note this company called Federal Van and Storage.
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: They say they got a machine gun and a silencer
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: in one of their storage lockers. Here, go ahead and
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: check this out. So I grab another agent. We both
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: went to Federal Vandaged Storage to check it out.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: So Paul's walking down the hallway gets us.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: No.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: You know, this is a typical day work for him.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: He actually mentioned on our call that he was like
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: getting ready to leave for the day. So it's a
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: little bit of like a Okay, I'll go check it out.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Now this storage unit that he's being called to come
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: take a look at. What has happened is the storage unit,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: this unit hasn't paid its bill. So the storage facility
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: they prepare to get rid of the contents via something
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: like storage wars, right, but they have to know what's
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: in there for sure, so they go and check it out,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and they find these guns and some other stuff that
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: we'll get into.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: And that's why they called the ATF very suspicious, very suspicious.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: So the name on the storage unit is Ray Bowman,
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: not even a fake name, not even a fake name,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: and he hasn't paid his bill, which is why they
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: went in there in the frist place. Amateur mistake, Yeah,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: unbelievable because I mean, clearly, this guy's a pro at
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: this point.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: And you have the money unless you spent it on
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: something else. Had the money. Yeah, isn't that wild? That's
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: really wild? Like what a mistake. Truly huge. It was
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: like one hundred and fifty five dollars bill. That's like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: pretty unbelievable. I think so too. I mean, the only
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: thing I'll give to my guess is like, you don't
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: have auto pay right at that, So to send a
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: check or something, right, I'm guessing just get to himself
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to the post office.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just too busy, too busy. So the storage unit
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: sends this letter to raise address. It doesn't get there
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: because the address doesn't exist. So with no payment and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: no response, they open up the unit check it out.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Paul gets this call and goes to the unit. Okay,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: so they get out there and sure enough, there's multiple guns,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: but there's also a Crown broil back like those purple
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: you know, Crown Royal, like the liquor Oh yeah, yeah yeah,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And funny enough, Paul said that they actually see these
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: a lot when they're investigating people storing things in those
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: bags because.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: They're like nice, sort of like velvet bags, and people
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: just like to keep them, I guess, and store things
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: in them. I guess, So I guess.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So, and so Paul recognizes that there's these little metal
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: pieces in the back and they are components that you
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: would use to make a silencer, and silencers are legal,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: so these components are legal at least at this time,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: and Paul has a specific skill set that allowed him
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: to immediately recognize what these were. And you know, he
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: noted throughout their call how many strange coincidences there were
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: in this investigation that allowed them to put the pieces together.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: So he recognizes these as components of silencers. But that's
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: not all he finds.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: But there were other weird things in there, as police
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: had a blue cap with police written on it.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Bick.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: That really strange because there was a legal briefcase that
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: was full of pamphlets. I think there were like eighty
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: five of them or something like that. I once said
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: that type them all out. They were on the weirdest
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: object how to kill people, how to do makeup, how
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: to go you know, just how to hide yourself from
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: the authorities.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: This is like a little of someone's search history. Now, yeah,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: exactly exactly. I'm like pamphlets, pamphlets. Okay.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: So Paul and his fellow agent sees the contents of
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: the storage locker, and the storage company is glad they
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: hand it over it. They want nothing to do with it.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: But now they're also scared because they have given the
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: ATF everything in this man's storage locker, and he doesn't
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: seem like the kind of guy that wants the ATF
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: to know about his storage locker, let alone have everything
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: in it. M So they're pretty afraid that he's going
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to come back to pay his bill and then be
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: really unhappy. So Paul tells them, look, if this person
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: comes back to pay the bill, take the money, there's
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: a chance they won't even go back to the locker
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and check it out. And in case they do, I'm
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: going to leave a letter in there. On ATF letterhead says, hey, we'd.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Like to talk to you.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: So the man behind the encounter of the storage office,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: his name's Alan, and I want to call this out.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: It's a small detail that probably is not that relevant,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: but Paul mentioned it a few times that Alan was
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: extremely frightened by this, but he did as he was
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: asked by Paul, and it ended up playing a major
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: role in their investigation moving forward. So Paul leaves with
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: all the contents of the storagelocker, leaves a letter in
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the storagelocker.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: They were actually a little relieved that I wanted to
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: take them, and so we just loaded those up, and
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: ironically I called the FBI on my way back to
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: the office and asked to speak to somebody in the
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: bank robbery unit, and a guy answers, and I said, hey,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: are you guys? Told him who I was. That was
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: an atf Asian had just found a box full of
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: weird stuff. It looks like a bank robbery kit to
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: me because it had a bolt proof ves, it had
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: a police hat, it had a scanner with an earpiece.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: So I'm thinking this is the kind of step you
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: using a robbery I said, is there anybody that you're
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: looking at? And guy says, no, not really, but if
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: you ever find out who he is, give us a
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: call back.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: So whoever he had called was probably in the local
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Kansas City office was not aware of trend trob Task Force.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: But eventually Paul would get a callback, but it would
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: take almost a year. So this is happening in May
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety seven, So a couple of months after
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: that cea first bank robbery, which happened in February of
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the storage unit visit. We're in May nineteen
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: ninety seven.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, so Paul has never heard of the trench Coat
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: robbers at this time. You know, it's like they were
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: on the news and making headlines because there was some
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: security footage, but the access to information was just not
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: what it is now. Yeah, you couldn't just google, like
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: are we looking for any bank robbers?
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: So he just does what he's supposed to do as
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: an atf agian, starts investigating the silencers and the guns
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: and these pamphlets.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: And he has a name, right, right, He has the
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: name Ray Bowman. But Ray did not put down a
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: real address, so they can't go there. Yeah.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: But then Paul gets a call from the storage company
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: and this is within a few weeks of them seizing
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: the items from the locker. So Alan, behind the front desk,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: is on the other line and he says someone has
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: shown up to settle the account.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: But he had come in and they said, well, you know,
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: you're in arrears and he said, yeah, I'm here to
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: pay it. So he did, and they were so definitely
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: afraid of him. They just didn't mention the fact that,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: you know, somebody came and took your boxes and they
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: were just hoping and praying that he wasn't going to
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: check him out, which he did not. All he wanted
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: to do is just pay what was Oh, So he
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: paid him in cash one hundred and fifty five dollars
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: and like sixty three cents and walks out. And here's
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: one of these strange twists of this. There's this guy
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: that was dealing with him, was scared to death. His
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: name was Alan Powell. He's deceased now, but he was
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: kind of strange guy. He worked there, and he had
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: a little dog that would sit under his desk and
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: everything was He was just kind of a different kind
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: of cat. And what happened is he ran to the
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: window as the guy's leaving and writes down the license
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: plate of the car that he's leaving him. Cool. If
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: he doesn't do that, we aren't any closer to figure
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: it out. Who he is. What he did?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Allan, Allan the unsung hero. We love it. Mm hmm.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: So they now have.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: The license plate and a name, so Ray Bowman and
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: a license plate, and so they run the plate and
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: it actually comes back to a guy named Wayne Wells,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: and of course Paul figures out, well, who's Wayne Wells?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: And he's a local retired police officer who had actually
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: stopped working due to disability. He has since passed away,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: but Paul is at this point wondering does he have
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: a dirty cop on his hands? So this takes Paul
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: to the local PD. So he's now talking to the
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: police and their intelligence unit trying to see who is
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Wayne Wells because we need to investigate him. He's tied
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: to this strange man who has the storage locker. Now
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: here's where one of those other coincidences that Paul told
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: me about comes into play. Is while he's at this
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: police department debriefing them on what's going on, and say
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: he needs to learn more about Wayne Wells, someone who's
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: working there here's the name Ray Bowman, and tells Paul
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: that he's related to someone named Cheryl who previously dated
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Ray Bowman. So Paul is really happy to have this intel,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: but he's also like, this is great for me, but
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: don't go talk to Cheryl or Wayne because I need
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: everything to lay low until I figure out what I'm
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: dealing with here.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: M okay. Yeah, he was very afraid that they would
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: tip him off because you never know, are Cheryl and
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Wayne still working with him? He doesn't know.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly, but this is now a different entity, right, This
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: is the police department, not the ATF, and they are
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: you know, they.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Collaborate, but they don't work for Paul. Interesting.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, Well, a couple of days go by and
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: I find out that Wantlind and another another officer name
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: I think is Dan Reynolds, they went an interviewed her.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Even though I was I was insisting they now.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: Know.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: I was furious with him, and I said, why did
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: you do that? But it broke the case wide open
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: because she was cooperative. She told them stuff about how
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: when she was living with them, he had a locked
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: room that he wouldn't allow her into, that he would
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: go on business trips for two or three weeks at
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: a time and come back and not even tell her
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: where he'd gone, and all this stuff. At one time
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: he asked her to sew him a bulletproof vest with kevlar.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Just a wealth of knowledge about even knew that he
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: was living with somebody called Jenny.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Wow, this is a huge break, huge break.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: So now Paul needs to move really quickly because even
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: though it seems like Cheryl's cooperative and has no interest
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: in protecting Ray, at this point, she does know him.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: They do have me virtual contacts. So okay, he's like,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Ray's living with someone named Jenny. So he finds Jenny's
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: address and that's how he locates Ray's residence. So that
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: was given to them by Cheryl Clark, the ex girlfriend.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: But they still need to figure out why Wayne Wells
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: is connected to this at all. And what they uncover
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: is that Wayne had some sort of lawnmower business. Now
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: earlier I was saying that Ray told people, including Jenny,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: that he sold lawnmowers, right, yeah, yeah, and so I
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: wasn't able to fully understand that connection if Wayne had
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: any knowledge or not of Ray's crime spree. But that
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: is the connection there in some way. But most importantly,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: they now know where Ray lives because Cheryl told them.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: So the ATF puts something called a pen register on
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: the residence, and it's different than a wiretap. It just
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: tells you what calls her incoming to the residence and
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: outgoing from a residence. It gives you, like the number
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: of the caller, yeah, exactly, so you can just see, Okay,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: this number calls a lot, This number calls a lot.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You know, see if there's patterns. And they also do
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: a trash run, so they start picking up any trash
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: left outside the residence.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Glamorous part of the job. Right exactly.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: And for whatever reason, in one of these trash runs
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: they throw away there's a photo of Ray and his family,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: So Ray, Jenny and their kids.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: It gets cataloged because they know what Ray looks like.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Now they're starting to surveil him, the local PD surveilling him,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: and they have no idea still that he's one of
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: the trench Coat robbers. But as they're following Ray, they
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: notice he's making a lot of calls from payphones, and
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: they subpoena the records from those payphones and set up
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: something new called a mail cover. So Ray had a
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: po box that they are able to track down, and
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: a mail cover tells you, kind of like a pen register,
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: what mail is incoming, what mail is outgoing. But they're
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: not opening it. They're just keeping track and kind of
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: following the lead because they don't want to tip off
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Ray that people are looking out his mail.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: So Paul, in the midst of this investigation that's unfolding,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: asks an intern at the ATA pull up every police report,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: arrest record, anything you can find on Rae Bowman, and
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: he does. And we've talked a lot about Ray and
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: we're not done yet. But meanwhile, in Minnesota. Also in
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: the late spring of nineteen ninety seven, Billy and his
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: girlfriend Mara Penny are building a cabin that's quaint. Yeah,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: it's quaint, right, And the cabin is being built in
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: northern Minnesota.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Really far north, like by the Canadian border. I think,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I bet that's beautiful.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: So pretty great choice. What a relaxing escape. Billy has
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: a good taste. Yeah, So you know, when you have
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: that kind of cash, it's not like you can walk
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: into a bank and deposit it. It's not like you
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: can put it in a mutual fund. So they're trying
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: to figure out a way to spend it. So they're
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: building this cabin together and they're paying the builder and cash. Well,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Billy and Myra are making a lot of complaints to
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: the builder. They don't like this, like that thinks they're
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: moving fast enough, and they're really starting to frustrate him,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: and he's like, you know, it's pretty unusual that someone
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: would pay me all in cash, because we're talking six
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: figure payments. And he gets very irritated and he decides
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: to call the irs. Wow, basically they piss off their
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: contractor Yeah, like so silly, and I feel like, meanwhile,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Ray was so careful in most ways. I mean the
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: storage unit not paying that certainly a slip up, but
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: seemed like he was treading pretty lightly. But Myra and
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Billy piss off this guy building their house and he
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: calls the IRS and he's like, maybe you should look
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: into them. The IRS is like, let's do it. So
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: they begin investigating, and this process takes a couple more months.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: So now we're in October of nineteen ninety seven. And
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: as a reminder, the c first bank robbery was in
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: February of nineteen ninety seven. Ray's storage unit was found
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: out in May of nineteen ninety seven, got it. So
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: now we're in October, and we know that Billy and
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Ray have some sort of an action because of the
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: pen register and the mail cover, but we don't yet
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: know that they're the trench cut robbers or what their
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: relationship is at all.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: And so the IRS agent up there, a guy named
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: Billy Waters who ended up being a major player in
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: this case, actually went to the house and served them
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: with a grand jury subpoena and that freaked them out,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: and so all he was looking at was like, what
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: are you doing with all this cash? He just wanted
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: to investigate it. But what they did is they panicked,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: and they actually flew to Las Vegas because they had
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: a bunch of money in a storage place there and
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: he picked it up and she flew back.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: So what he says to the end of that clip
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: is they panic when they get the subpoena. So they
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: try to take this cash that has been in their
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: home or in nearby locations, and they drive it to
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Las Vegas. They put it in a storage unit or
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: in a deposit box, some sort of storage situation there.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Mayra flies home and Billy drives. So as Billy is
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: driving home, Myra's back home because she flew and she
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: calls Ray and she tells him uncle Tom has been
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: to the house. Now I'm not completely sure of the
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: translation on that, but it's something like, we're in deep
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: shit with the federal government.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the code word code cal Tom has been
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: to the house. Yeah, not the call Ray wanted to get.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: So Billy's still making his way through Nebraska, going seven
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: miles over the speed limit, and he crossed paths with
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the Nebraska state trooper who had just so happened to
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: recently attend a course on drug interdiction, which just means
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: that you are stopping drugs from getting to their destination.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: And he's pulling Billy over for breaking the speed limit.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: So this is November tenth, nineteen ninety seven.
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: When he approaches the driver side of Billy's car, he
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: notices Billy seems pretty nervous, so he asks, can I
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: search the car? Billy says no, no, you can't search
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: the car. Well, the police officer calls for backup. He's like,
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: just hold on it, I'm really going to search your car.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: He also calls in for a drug dog because he
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: has just taken this class on drug intradiction.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: And the dog didn't exactly hit on the trunk. The
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: dog seemed interested in the car, but he didn't according
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: to the hand or, it wasn't a good enough sign
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: that there was dope in the car. But the trooper
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: on his own decides, well, this guy's really nervous and
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: he's not being cooperative, so I'm going to search your car.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: So he searches the inside of the car and he
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: finds a couple of guns. He finds a bunch of
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: lock picking material, keys, all kinds of stuff. So he
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: decides I'm going to open up the trunk. He opens
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: up the trump foot locker in the trunk, opens up
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: one point eight million dollars in cash.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: So that's a lot of money. But Paul calls this
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: a bad search, So that is an unwarranted search because
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: they pulled Billy over for speeding and then they searched
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: the car after he said, you can't search the car,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: but he did anyway, and he lerted the FBI. And
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: so I'm not exactly clear on when the FBI then
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: gets involved, but Billy's taken into custody. I'm assuming because
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: of what was already going on with the irs, they
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: had some way to make sure this was above board.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I can only assume. So he never makes it back.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: He's arrested.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: He's arrested, Okay, yeah, I think he was arrested that
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: day that he was pulled over. So Billy's in custody
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: and now the FBI is raiding his house and they're
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: starting to put together here's a guy with a lot
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: of cash, Here's a guy that the ATF thinks is
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: a bank robber. But we don't know what their relationship is.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: We know they've communicated, but as they read Billy's house.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: They find something.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're on the phone with the FBI agents that
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: are in the house up in Minnesota at the log
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Cabin serving a search warrant there, and they're acting kind
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: of weird. They're saying, well, we're not really find anything,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: and you know, they were kind of frustrated. And I
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: can't remember exactly how it happened, but somebody who well,
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: there's a picture on the refrigerator and we said, well,
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: what's the picture. Well it's a guy and a a
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: woman and three kids. And we're like, bingo, that's Ray Bowman.
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: So we're trying to tell him that's Ray. That's the
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: guy we're working on here.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, like a Christmas card or something.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like just some photo that they both had. Yeah,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: probably a Christmas card. I had thought of that. Maybe
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: that's what it was. And that's why up in the
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: trash is like how long does a person keep a
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Christmas car? Yeah, So, because of this Grand Jury subpoena,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: this code word call Uncle Thomas been to the house.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Ray has known that things have been heating up for them,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: so he takes while this is happening, two Duffel bags
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: filled with cash. Well, over one hundred thousand dollars in
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: each one of them, and drops them off with his
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: estranged brother that he's been a strange friend for I
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: think about two years at this point, and he tells
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: his brother, hold onto these stuffel bags, don't open them
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: if anything happens to me, for my kids. He also
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: tells his partner, Jenny that something bad has happened to
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: a friend of his and he's not sure if it
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: will affect him. She doesn't know what this means, but
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: from what I know about their relationship, and Jenny is
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: pretty sharp, she understood that the lack of transparency and
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: all of these comments were concerning, and she had young
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: children that she was looking after, and so I'm sure
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: she wondered about it.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: But what could she do?
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: And the day then comes. Ray Moowment is arrested without
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: incident while being surveilled as his home is rated.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: Wow, I'm reading them his rights. You're done? And he
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: argued with me, and I said, I'm telling you, I'm
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: reading them his rights right now. I read rays rights.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: I said, do you want to talk? And Ray just
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: nodds and said no, which I knew was going to happen.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: I said that's it. Take him back to his cell
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: and that was it. But then I left to go
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: to where they were serving the search for That was
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: crazy because they got into that locker room and I
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: thought I'd get there too late to see anything. Well,
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: it took him forever to get into that locker room
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: because they had to get a locksmith to break in
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: because it was a really high dollar lock that he
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: had on the room. And then inside was safe and
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: that took the guy probably another two hours to break in.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: They're safe. So we were there quite late, and I
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: think we took all together. We took like three hundred
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: and seventy nine thousand dollars in cash and eighty five
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: guns and it was quite a hall woosh.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I love that he had to bring in a locksmith
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to break into Rai's secret room and it took them hours. Yeah.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So Ray is arrested, Billy's in custody, and they're
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: linking them together. So Ray and Billy are both in custody.
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: The atf IRS FBI, they're like, we've got the trench
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: co robbers. These are the trench coat robbers. Ray's brother
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: then turns in the Duffel bags, which are of course
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: full of cash traceable back to the Sea First bank robbery.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: So they still needed a little bit more than the
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: photo and the cash. Like, they know who they are,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: but they need to be able to prove it. And
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: so they go back through the mail cover and see
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: that Billy at one point mailed RAYA Keach was safe
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: deposit box in Washington State where the Sea First being
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: robbery happened. And they then remember that intern who pulled
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: all these arrest records, and they see mugshots going back
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: to nineteen sixty two for their record boosting. Wow, and
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: they're arrested together at certain times, and so you have
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: the names and different police reports. So certainly the photo
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: was really great evidence, but they had been linked many
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: other ways.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Once everyone sort.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Of collaborated, really largely thanks to the investigation done by
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: the ETF. That's really what broke the case wide open.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: And I remember when I'm sitting down with all these
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: FBI agents and they said, man, if we could only
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: put them together. I reached into my boxes stuff and
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: I pulled out that police report and I said, well,
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: will this do? They got arrested together stealing records in Springfield,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: And they said, how why did you do all this?
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: They just couldn't get over it that we did a
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: pen register, and we did the mail cover and we
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: did all this stuff. I had a file about an
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: inch and a half thick of all his prior arrests.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: None of them resulted in a conviction though, I mean,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: he didn't do time.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: What an exciting moment when it all comes together. Yeah, totally.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: And you know, Paul said multiple times throughout the interview
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: like he thinks highly of the FBI. He was glad
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: that they were collaborating with this, but ultimately they kind
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: of take center stage at the end of the story
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: after he's done all this like work, and you could
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: tell it's a little bit like no. But the transcoll
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: robberies are finally brought to justice. They're arrested in nineteen
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: ninety seven and they're charged with some of the bank robberies.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: But the issue is that even though these different organizations
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: like that BI and the ATF are able to put
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: together well over twenty around twenty seven bank robbery, the
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: statue of limitations was up on most of them. Really, Yeah,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of them had like a five year statue
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: of limitation.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: So what could they do.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So they have three robberies that they're able to
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: charge them with. That is the US Bank in Portland, Oregon,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: which took place in February of nineteen ninety four, they
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: still two hundred and thirty three thousand dollars, a bank
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: in Ohio on October sixth, nineteen ninety four three hundred
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: and sixty two thousand dollars, and of course the Seafirst
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Bank in Washington, where they still four point five million,
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: four point four million, but we can round up.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: So in nineteen ninety eight, Billy decides he's going to
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: take a plea deal. And here is where it kind
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: of turns for me with Billy, because he has told
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: Myra a lot over the years.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask that because when they get
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the call, they're freaking out, seemingly together. She also knows
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: we're paying for this cabin in cash. So how much
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: does she know? She knows a lot? I called her,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: did Yeah, she didn't answer. Oh that's a emailed her. Wow.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no answer from Myra, But yeah, I think she
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: knew a lot. I think he had told her more
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: and more, and so she pleads with him to take
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: a deal. Okay, and he does, and so he goes
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: into custody in nineteen ninety seven. He takes the plead
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: deal in early nineteen ninety eight, and he was released
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: in twenty eleven.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay, I called him too and no answer. Okay,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: But Mara wasn't charged with anything.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: So Mayra okay, had tried to bail him out when
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: he first was arrested.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: What did she use? Stolen cash?
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think she did, like six months for
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: money laundering or something. I mean, she must have really
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: loved this guy. Ray, on the other hand, decides to
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: take his case to trial, and I think a lot
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: of that was based on that. He thought that the
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: searches were not up to above board and so could
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: they really use all the evidence that they said they
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: had on him? And he was found guilty and he
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: was sentenced to two hundred and ninety five months in prison.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: How many years is that? It's a lot. I think
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: it was twenty four years or something like that. Whereas
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Billy served what would that have been tennish?
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like less than fifteen years okay. Yeah, So let's
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: see here. Ray was sentenced over twenty four years, okay,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: so quite a bit longer. Yeah, and Ray ended up
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: passing away in prison once. We'll talk more about in
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: a minute, but I want to say Ray and Billy
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: they didn't kill anyone, but they stole a lot of
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: money and traumatized a lot of people who stood between
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: them and that money, and most of those people were
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: just at work doing their jobs. They held the family
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: at gunpoint in the middle of the night, they exchanged
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: gunfire with officers who were obviously also just doing their job,
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: so it was not a victimless crime spree. And indirectly,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: they also had two other major victims, which were two
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: other bank robbers. Really yeah, So Frank Bulldock and Francis Larkin.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: And there's an interesting side story. Two other guys from
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: Boston had gotten arrested by the FBI for two of
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: the jobs that they did in Wisconsin. And these guys
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: actually got convicted.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, So two other guys are wrongly convicted
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: for robberies committed by Ray and Billy.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, were they actual bankrobbers or not? And they just
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: got convicted of these crimes and either way it's yeah.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: So basically what happened is Frank Bulldock and Francis Arkin
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: had been charged with having committed an armored car robbery
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: in Boston. They hadn't been convicted of that crime at
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: this point, but they had been charged stealing a large
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: amount of cash from an armored car. An FBI agent
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: who happened to be either familiar with or working on
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: the trench Coat robber case was visiting Boston when he
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: reads an article about this duo that robs an armored
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: car and he's like, boom, these must be the trench
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Coat robbers.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not unreasonable.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: So they arrest Bulldock and Larkin and they are actually
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: convicted for having robbed a bank in Milwaukee in nineteen
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: ninety one, which was actually not them, it was billion Ray.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Bulldock was sentenced to forty eight years and four months
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: in prison. Larkin was sentenced to thirty two years and
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: six months in prison, and they ended up actually just
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: dropping the armored car robbery charges after that, because you know,
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: they're effectively spending the rest of their lives in prison. Now,
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: these guys were not innocent in their lives. They're innocent
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: of this specific robbery that they were charged with. But
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Bulldock had been convicted of second degree murder in Massachusetts
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: and released on parole before this all happened. So yeah,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: I don't want to also make it seem like they
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: were not problematic in their own ways, but they certainly
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: shouldn't have been convicted of this crime.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: They were convicted did of a crime they did not commit.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: So then it was that overturned and were they released.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So during their imprisonment, the trench cut robbers are
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: found out and arrested. So I think it was Billy
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: who admits to this Milwaukee robbery, and when that is revealed,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: they have to release these people. So they were both
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: released from prison in nineteen ninety nine. I'm not discussing
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: their other crimes because it just wasn't part of the story.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: But they didn't do the crime that they were serving
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: all this time for, which is a huge miscarriage of justice.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Totally, it doesn't you know, I mean, it doesn't really matter.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of our Jennifer Thompson episode where you know,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: she talked about putting the wrong person in prison, no
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: matter if you think they're a good person or not,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: is an injustice And so I'm glad that they got released.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: And that's really wild. Totally.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: And I will say that Buldock sued for nine million
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: dollars for the wrongful conviction.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: It's also why it's terrible idea, like obviously, you know
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: it wasn't intentional, but yeah, then they're of course they're
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: going to sue and yeah, we'll get money.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: The judge actually I think threw it out because they
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: were like, you're not innocent, okay, But I mean, yeah.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Little side story there, But isn't that so crazy? So crazy?
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: That is largely the story of the trench Coat Robbers.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: But Ray Bowman was also a father, and you know,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: I had listened to that great podcast My Fugitive Dad,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, what is it like, Like, what is
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: that like to know your dad as this other person
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: portrayed in the media. And so I reached out to
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: a couple of family members and I was lucky enough
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: to speak with Sam Bowman, who.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Is Ray's daughter.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, she was really young when this
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: all happened, but of course it has tremendously impacted her
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: life and still does. And you know, I asked Sam
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: about her dad and the man that she knew, because
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: she didn't know this version of him, and I also
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: want to first say before I get into the Sam
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: Bowman and of it all. Sam was so great and acknowledged.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: So we were getting into our conversation talking about the
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: fact that her dad went to prison and she didn't
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: get to spend most of her life with him because
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: of that, and then he passed away in prison. She
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, and his time was cut short, but
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: by his own choices, and she fully acknowledged what he did.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: And I think it is totally within her rights to
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: also acknowledge that he was her dad. And so I
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: asked her if she had any memories that she would
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: share with me about Ray as her dad.
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: I think about him in his giant green armchair. He
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: used to stick his lower lip out in a very
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: specific way, and he would always be reading the newspaper,
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: and he's just under this warm yellow light and a
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: stark outside the house. And that's where he would always
• 56:55
  Speaker 5: be if he was home and not doing anything else
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: in the house, he would just be in that chair
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: and reading. And then every night I would climb in
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: his lab and I'd lay down and he'd run my
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: back and I'd watch the TV like sixty minutes whatever
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: was on or cops and then he'd run my back
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: until I went to sleep, and then he would carry
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: me to my room and tuck me in and say
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: buenos noches, and I would go to sleep.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: That's really sweet. It's really sweet.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm so glad she has that memory of him,
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: and Sam was just so great, and she does have
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: in her own way, like a sense of humor about
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: all of this. And she said, you know, he also,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: I remember, had a lot of trench coats, which of
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: course has been widely reported on. But here's what she
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: had to say about it.
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: Actually, he used to obviously wore trench coats a lot.
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: He was very very fast, obviously. Yeah, so he was
• 57:50
  Speaker 5: very fashionable. I know, he used to wear like Italian
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: silk button down shirts or whatever.
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: He was always well dressed. My mother was always well dressed.
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: They believed in presenting themselves in that way to the world,
• 58:00
  Speaker 5: which I also like to do in my own personal style.
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: But specifically, what I loved was he wore like Italian
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: leather shoes, like specific leather shoes that were made for
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: his feet, which means that he had those Oh gosh,
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: they're like wooden feet.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I was picturing this like, Okay, you
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: have this dad who wears nice clothes and has these
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: like custom shoe shapeholders. It's like he tucks her into
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: bed at night, but he also watches cops.
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, I'm like, I love that
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: she watches cops with him. Yes, this is something that's
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: interesting to him, right.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: She said that he loved watching shows like that, And
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: I'm like, is this guy just an adrenaline junkie?
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Wow? Wow? I love hearing these details about him. You
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: know that he was like obviously really cared about his
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: clothes and spent a lot of time and money on
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: his appearance.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I wasn't able to locate these people, but
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: I heard through my veryvarious phone calls and research that
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: actually Ray and Billy overall now after the zip tide
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: and pointing guns at people, acknowledging that were kind. Like
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: there were instances where someone said it's too tight, it's
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: hurting me, and they would loosen it a little bit
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: and reassure them they were going to be okay. And look,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: I don't want to overstate a level of kindness when
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: you're robbing a bank and people are terrified, but they had,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: you know, these different layers to them, and I loved
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: talking with Sam and hearing about this other part of
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Ray that you don't hear about. I asked her, though,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: looking back, could she remember any display of wealth or
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: money that might have seemed out of place given their
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: otherwise modest lifestyle because she was so young.
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: I like to say that I'm very lucky. I had
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: no conscious concept of money until after it happened, when
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: we immediately had no money. To me, No, there was
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: nothing I would say that was extravagant. I know he
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: used to have like it wasn't great, but it was
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: gorgeous at the time. I was in nineteen eighty six Corvette.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 5: At one point he had Harley that was from like
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: the seventy three something like that. He liked his clothes,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: he liked to eat well. I remember, because we lived
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 5: outside Kansas City, we would go to the plaza and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: he would.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: Spoil us with toys.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: Toys like when we were born when because my older sister,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: he would spoil her with me with my little sister,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: but like we just toys galore.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he sounds like a great guy on it. Yeah,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: he's a great guy. I mean obviously they committed a crime.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: They also did their time for it. But there's something
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: really romantic about bank robbers because it's sort of like
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: this idea that they were like, you know, this whole
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: thing with the American dream, this whole like thing I'm
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: born into, or I'm gonna maybe have to work this
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: nine to five. And I don't know their backgrounds, but
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: it seems like neither of them came from wealth and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: they were like, actually, we'll just cheat the system and
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: we're going to do a different And then it's sort
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: of hard to be super sympathetic when they're stealing from banks,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: you know, right, So there's something that feels very like
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: adventurous about it. And I am not discounting the fact
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: that they also terrified people. But yeah, it's interesting.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: We talked about this so much, but especially talking to Sam,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: just being reminded that people are, you know, dynamic, and
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: it doesn't mean something that he did wasn't wrong. But
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: he was also a dad who clearly loved his children
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: and he really I think did what he could to
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: sort of protect them from what was going on. You know,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Paul Marquart, the ATF agent, we've been hearing clips from
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: said that at Ray's trial, when Jenny learned the amount
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: of money that he had stolen in the Seafirst bank robbery,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: she audibly gasped in the courtroom. I mean, she truly
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: had no idea, and you know, she was completely innocent
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: of the crimes that he committed. We talked about Mayra
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Penny Billy's girlfriend, on the other hand, who had been
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: arrested for money laundering. She also then wanted to shield
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: her children Drin from it as much as she could,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: So for the most part, Sam actually grew up knowing
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: nothing specific about what happened.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: So obviously all of this happens when I'm like first grade,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: and that's like the fallout of is first in the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: second grade.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: So being that young, my mom.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 5: Said, daddy broke a rule and he has to go
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: to time out for a while, because that's how you
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: explain that to like.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: A five year old four five year old, Yeah.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: And that it was it made sense, and I kind
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: of held on to that for so long. But that's
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 5: what I held on too from that was, Oh, he's
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: going to come home, Like he'll come back.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: He's just in time out.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's sad, and she would go and
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: visit her father sometimes while he was in prison, but
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: was so young that the visit was, you know, it's
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: in a very controlled environment and it's not like she's
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: using that time to ask a lot of questions. But
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: they would exchange letters and birthday cards. And another sweet
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: thing that Sam told me is that her uncle, her
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: father's brothers would send birthday cards blink to Ray for
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: him to fill out to his kids in prison, and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: he always would And I just thought that was so
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: sweet the way they really rallied, you know, because when
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: all of this happened, Jenny then had no money nowhere
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: to go. She had been relying on Ray financially, which
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: I think is the case in a lot of households,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: and they moved in with one of her sisters in Georgia.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: She had to go back to work to support the family.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: And so when I asked Sam Moore about like, what
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: did you know and when did you find out? She
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: was like, you know, life just sort of keeps moving
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: and it's not like you don't have questions, but it
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: doesn't consume your thoughts because it's your normal. But one
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: day it is revealed to her. Actually Sam was home
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: with her older sister, and her older sister was watching
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: a crime show on television.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: We were in Georgia.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: We lived in an apartment out there, and my older
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: sister had told me, SAVING need to go to your
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: room and middle of the day and she's watching TV,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 5: and I'm like, why are you telling me to go
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: to my room?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 4: That's rude. I don't need to be in there.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: So I pretend to go to my room and then
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: I sneak back out and I'm hiding behind the couch
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: in our living room and she's watching the TV, and
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: from behind the couch, me peeking around the corner. I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: found out what my dad did and what his life
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: was before he.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: Had me and when he had me and after he
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: had me.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: And I found out about the trial, and I found
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: out about everything. And I was ten years old, nine
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: years old, ten years old. Yeah, no one had to
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 5: tell me. I found out. It was just so.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: Such a surreal way to realize that, just to.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: Actually come to terms with, oh, he's not coming back,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: because you don't come back from that.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we didn't get into the specifics of this.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: She was so young when it all happened, but I
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: am ad you know he was sentenced to twenty four years.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: That's an amount of time that's hard to comprehend as
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: an adult and as a child it's impossible. And so
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: I think Jenny, just in an effort to protect them,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: was sort of also protecting the details of that. And
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: he's in time out and we'll see him when we
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: see him, and they did go and visit, but it
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: was difficult. And Sam, because of this experience, really sees
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: what we've seen, which is that people are capable of
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: good and bad. And that's the case for almost everyone.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: I think every because it's it's so.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 5: These shades of gray that people have, where no one
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 5: is black or white, it's everyone as a shade of gray.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: Everyone thought and experienced my dad as this wonderful person.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: And obviously his brother knew good and bad. I'm sure
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: his mom knew good and bad. But he was kind
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: in so many ways, and he was my dad, and
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 5: he was, in my opinion for a short time, a
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: very good dad, so reconciling. I think that's why it
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: made such a sad impact on so many people. The
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: people who knew him for so long understood that he
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: had been doing this for so long and were like,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: you did this to yourself? Well, so mourning the fact
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: that he had started a family, he had kids, he
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: was trying to do better in some ways, and was
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: trying to be there for us.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: Ray passed away in prison in twenty eleven. So Sam
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: actually has a tattoo on her arm that reminds her
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: of her dad, and it's a trench coat hanging on
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: this she or hanging on a coat rack with the
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: Italian leather. She's at the bottom of it. And she
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: said that she'll find herself holding her arm where the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: tattoo is at times and it just reminds her of him.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: And I just really loved that.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, Sam is such a thoughtful, kind, introspective person
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: and it's just one of the ways that she has
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: processed her grief. So thank you so much to Sam
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: for sharing her story with us as well.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: So glad that you were able to speak with her. Yeah,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, you know, So when they were finally caught,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: how much money was found that they actually took?
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: Do you know I tried to figure this out and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: I couldn't. They re covered some of it, but not
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: all of it, is the short answer.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Well, that's my other question. First of all, yeah, if
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I were the brother, good for him for following, yeah,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: the law and doing the right thing. But he probably
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: could have held onto those defel bags full of money
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and I would have been okay. But you think about
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: all of those safety deposit boxes and bank boxes like
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: spread out across the country, and I'm like, did they
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: find all of it? Did they?
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Not impossible to say? And I you know, Billy didn't
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: answer the phone, but I certainly would have asked. I
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: know that Ray also told his mother, Hey, here's a
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: Kido safe deposit box if anything happens to me. You know,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: when things started heating up, he was trying to sort
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: of help his family before he went to prison, I think.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: But yeah, sounds like his family turned in any money
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: that they became aware of. And yeah, I don't know,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of money to recover, and it sounds
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: like they were pretty good at hiding it. I asked Sam,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: you know, do you get that question? And she's like, sometimes,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: and I understand people's curiosity, but that usually people's response
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: is pretty empathetic when she tells them.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what a wild thing. It's like such
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: a banana story. Yeah, and then if it's like your
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: life though, yeah, and your father, then it's you know,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: very real and a whole different thing. Totally. Yeah. So
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: that is the story of the trench Coat Rock Circesia.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: What a story. I loved it. Thanks for listening. We'll
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: be back next week.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: If you have a story for us, we would love
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: to hear it. Our email is The Knife at exactly
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: rightmedia dot com, or you can follow us on Instagram
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: at the Knife Podcast.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: Or a Blue Sky at the Knife Podcast. This has
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: been an Exactly Right production hosted and produced by me
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: Hannah Smith and me Paytia Eten.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: Our producers are Tom Bryfogel and Alexis Samarosi.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: is Christina Chamberlain. Our theme music is by Birds in
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: the Airport, artwork by Vanessa Lilac. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Georgia Hardstark and Daniell Kramer.